Apple today marks 25 years since the introduction of the original iPod, one of the company's most significant products and a major contributor to its expansion beyond the Mac. Steve Jobs unveiled the first iPod on October 23, 2001, at a small press event in the Town Hall auditorium at Apple's Infinite Loop headquarters. Advertised as offering 1,000 songs in your pocket, the device combined a 5GB hard drive with a monochrome LCD display, a mechanical scroll wheel, and up to 10 hours of battery life.
The original model cost $399 and required a Mac with iTunes, with FireWire transferring music and charging the battery. By April 2007, Apple had sold 100 million iPods, less than six years after the first model reached customers. By its 10th anniversary in 2011, sales had exceeded 304 million units.
The iPod touch arrived in September 2007, featuring a 3.5-inch Multi-Touch display, Wi-Fi, and Safari. Apple discontinued the iPod classic in September 2014, and the iPod nano and iPod shuffle followed in July 2017, leaving the iPod touch as the sole remaining model. Hardware revisions followed in quick succession, with the second-generation iPod adopting a touch-sensitive scroll wheel and the third-generation model introducing the 30-pin Dock Connector in 2003.
The full-size iPod gained a color display in 2004 and video playback in 2005. The iPod mini was announced in January 2004, representing the first extension of the product line.
Source: MacRumors · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing